


A Very Overdramatic Warlock

by eternalchill



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Magic, Past Relationship(s), Time Skips, dragon - Freeform, supportive family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-12-26 23:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalchill/pseuds/eternalchill
Summary: The entirely unnecessary drabble of a warlock who is most definitely, really quite truly over his broken heart.





	A Very Overdramatic Warlock

Fenik Lothrop _isn’t_ lost. Lost is a strong word. Rather, he’s slightly misplaced from his original destination. Which is fine. He likes staring down clicking, wiggling, nine-eyed, acid-spitting wyrmbeasts much more than he likes sitting in a richly bejeweled throne room and possibly speaking to the new King of Ithdor who is rumored to be a King worth meeting. He's only ever known one such King.

He pulls a flask of swirling orange from his belt. He doesn’t have the same magic as his sister who casually pulled a tower from the earth one morning and then called it her home, but he can make fyre flasks given enough time.

He has six such flasks left on his belt, and so as long as he doesn’t waste the one in his hand, he knows that he’ll be fine.

He throws the fyre flask. It sails merrily through the air, its contents swirling as the flask slowly rotates. It hits the wyrmbeast square on its scaly, snotty nose and erupts with a giant _whoosh_ of air.

And the wyrmbeast. Just. Sneezes and then shakes the sticky fyre off.

Fenik Lothrop fought the Giant of Egeberd and won with the help of his fyre flasks. It was a fight that rocked the heavens and maybe caused a small tsunami off the coast. He isn’t bragging or anything, but it was the talk of Vangast, the not-so-backwards country to the west.

He takes one good long look at the wyrmbeast, with a small fire now at its feet and makes an elective decision. He won’t be able to meet the fabled King of Ithdor if a wyrmbeast in a nameless marsh eats him, so it only makes sense to move at a self-preserving speed _away_ from the wyrmbeast and in the direction he last saw the road.

It’s not like anyone is going to _know_ or anything. Even if they did, he’ll just bring up the fact he didn’t feel like getting into a proper tussle with an acid-spitting monster. He’s wearing his fancy clothes today. The kind of clothes that he can sit across from a King in and casually bring up the fact that the sash around his waist belonged to a waste reaper and his gloves are saberfanged wolf skin, so clearly he’s the kind of guy people like to have around.

The wyrmbeast follows of course, because it didn't get the message that he tossed at it with the fyre flask. He doesn't know how the dratted things have even managed catch anything that doesn't stumble across them unwittingly, full of pluckish confidence and following a bad map. The wyrmbeast is too large to slip between the marsh trees and too heavy to stay above the mud crust of the marsh.

He figures it out pretty quickly.

It projectile vomits acid.

It cuts through the trees lands on the mud which causes the crust to dissolve and leave him attempting to run across a quickly sinking surface.

He takes another fyre flask from his belt, considers it and lobs it unceremoniously behind him while continuing to skitter forward. He hears the flask shatter and the proper _whoosh_ of sticky fyre turning into fire. It catches on the trees, the mud, the little plants, the water in the marsh — anything and everything that the fyre touches catches fire. Except the wyrmbeast. He can still hear it crashing along behind him.

But the spreading fire is working. There's too much smoke to give the wyrmbeast a clear line of sight to spit acid and it's slowed down even further as the mud crust breaks apart.

This gives Fenik enough time to find a place not on fire, but still close enough to hear the wyrmbeast and draw the Sword of Raagul from it's sheath at his hip. It's a gorgeous sword: gold inlay all along the middle, a fist sized ruby in the hilt, black obsidian in place of steel on the edges and a general aura of doom. It's quite possible the best sword he's ever seen. But then, it's not really meant to use in traditional combat.

He only ever uses in dire circumstances. Or times like this one when he's exactly eight shades of peeved and trying to avoid getting his Important Outfit anymore dirty than it already is.

“Sworn protector of the dawn clouds, maker of tides and spinner of hope, hear me now as I stand before an adversary worthy of your judgement! Raagul! Lay waste to the one who resists!” Fenik shouts at the sky and raises the sword up.

Thirty seconds ago, there had been no clouds in the sky. Now pastel shaded clouds blot out the sky and allow only the sun to be seen like a large, unblinking eye. The sword vibrates in his hand and he brings it down to point at the wyrmbeast.

He doesn't have the needlessly excellent spellwork of his sister, but there's no one better at celestial summonings than him. He allows himself a moment of smug satisfaction. Then the full force of Raagul’s Judgement spits from the sky and hits the ground like a hurricane.

* * *

  


The King of Ithdor doesn't look like Fenik had hoped. There's a lot less gold finery and sweet summer wine. He doesn't even look old enough to know how to drink wine. Or do any of the legendary feats that the tales promised. There's no way this boy travelled to the celestial realm and crossed blades with the celestial king.

He also doesn't know how to respond to the severed wyrmbeast head. Fenik can't blame the young King. The head is huge and takes up not a small portion of the throne dias. He looks like he wants to poke it, but only the stern glare of his advisor beside him seems to stop him.

“Uhm.” Says the King, “I don't… I'm not sure what to say. I don't even know what this is.”

“It's a wyrmbeast.” Fenik tells him and very suddenly feels that this boy won't recognize any of the key pieces of his outfit that he tried very hard not to wreck. “It eats travelers in the marsh.”

The King looks lost. “I see. Thanks for killing it? Before it became an issue.” He trails off.

“It was living in a den made of skulls. It was an issue, only nobody survived to inform you that it was an issue.”

“Oh. That's bad. You've done a great service to the people of Ithdor. I'm sure they'll be happy to know that the marsh is safe again.” The King gives him a brilliant smile. “I shall display this head at the gates to show the people that they have nothing to fear.”

This King knows nothing. Honestly nothing. Fenik actually fears for the continued survival of Ithdor.

“Your marsh is infested with wyrmbeasts. It probably has been for a while. I ran into several.”

His belt is empty of fyre flasks which shows the truth of his statement, but the King has yet to comment on the state of his flask belt.

He wouldn't normally even consider saying this, but this child King is not the person he heard tales about. “Your Majesty,” he starts, “don't take this the wrong way, but I normally have a very busy schedule. You may have heard of me. I killed the Giant of Egeberd and brokered peace between the Denizens of the Deep and the fair people of Totovolt, your southern neighbour kingdom. When I'm not doing that, I have tea with citizens of the celestial realm. And when I was there, I heard tales of a glorious King of Ithbold. You really, _really_ don't match what I heard.”

The young King flushes and sighs, “I have a brother and he's the adventurous one. But people much prefer to say a King saved them, rather than a Prince who'll never take the throne. I _told_ him to stop letting them do that. Otherwise I get people like you, bringing in things like that,” he points at the wyrmbeast head with astonishing vigour, “into my throne room _all the time._ If you would like — where are you going?”

“Home.”

He leaves the wyrmbeast's head. Maybe this fabled not-king brother will see and take it as in invitation. He could do with a distraction.

* * *

  


“You can’t mop all day.” Esana Lothrop, his dearest sister tells him. From behind her bubbling cauldron, she looks traditionally witchy.

Fenik huddles deeper in his mound of pillows. “I can. I did yesterday.”

Esana’s tower is an excellent place to come to sulk. It’s smooth granite walls give off a foreboding vibe that dissuades errant visitors from knocking on her door. Since he’d last seen her, she’d also hatched a proper dragon and it sleeps outside her front door like a giant, fire-breathing dog. No one will bother him here with requests that any half-baked warlock could do.

Esana stirs the potion she has bubbling in the cauldron. It’s a very snarky stir. “Just because the Ithbold King wasn’t who you thought he’d be, doesn’t mean you get to use all the pillows in my tower.”

“They’re very nice pillows.” He mutters.

“I know. They were a gift and I would like to keep them. You need to get over yourself, Fenik. Have you even made any more of your fyre flasks?”

It’s a pointed question that they both know the answer too. He’s spent the entirety of his visit with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and walking from room to room with a general aura of misery that’s starting to cause Esana’s plants to wilt.

“He was supposed to be the kind of King that leave his mark on the ages, Esana. He didn’t even know what a wyrmbeast was! What kind of King doesn’t know what a wyrmbeast is? And! And I was wearing my waste reaper sash! Do you know how hard that was to get that?”

“I have a collection in my closet.”

He ignores her because she very clearly doesn’t understand his pain.

One day, he will find the King the legends talk about and —

“I know what you're thinking and you need to stop.”

“Get out of my head.”

Esana gives him a dead eyed glare. Even when contorting her expression into something traditionally undignified, the fine Lothrop features that they both share allows her to carry it off primly. “ _I can't._ You think loud enough that Rabubu can probably hear you.”

“You named your dragon _Rabubu_?”

She crosses her arms across her chest. “Is that a problem?”

They both know it's a problem. In legend Rabubu is a world eating serpent who was rumored to be born again and again and devour the heart of every world he is born on.

He shrugs. "Not for me.”

Esana goes back to the careful stirring of her cauldron and keeps her eyes impressively focused on the potion. “Look,” she says, “you aren't getting things done while you're here. Go out there. Find this King that you want and let me know when you do.”

He sits up properly on his pillow throne. “One can’t just find a King of legend wandering in the woods. If I could do that, do you think I’d be sitting here?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Rather, she pulls a frail flask down from the shelf with a wave of her hand and ladles some of the vibrant red potion into it carefully. Then she looks up and raises an eyebrow.

He can _tell_ she doesn't believe him.

“I wouldn't be.” He says affronted and shakes the silver bangles on his wrist. “These are a direct line to Shmbla the Navigator. She can find anything that's lost. If there was a lost fabled King in the woods, I'd have found him by now.”

She idly ladles more potion into another flask. “I've met Shmbla,” she says like it's no big deal and that he didn't just wave around one of the most valuable artifacts of the century, “and she can only find lost things. If there is a King in the woods, she can't find him if he doesn't think himself lost. This is why you should have practiced practical magic instead of summonings.”

Neither of them do practical magic. Lower class warlocks and witches do that. He talks to forces long thought beyond reach while she casually reshapes the landscape every other week. Their names are already legendary and looked upon with the same reverence given to the celestial deities. Which is great for most things, but he can't just knock on the door of some court wizard and ask for scrying lessons without losing all of his credibility.

He sniffs, “Dakaol—”

“Gave up his kingship when you two broke up. He's not just going to walk up to some castle and get that back. So if that's why you've wandering like a lost dog from country to country, you need to stop. If you felt like charming some shepard that would be great. Feeding Rabubu is expensive.” She waves her ladle and bits of potion go flying. The droplets that hit the walls sizzle.

She makes an aggrieved sound and snaps her fingers. The wall ripples and the sizzling stops.

He considers it, but ultimately decides against it. Shepards smell like sheep.

* * *

 

_Dear brother:_

_I heard you've been in Vangast. How are the beaches? Rabubu has had another growth spurt. He's started eating mountain peaks. I had an interesting visitor this morning that I thought you'd like to know about. The Ithbold King faced a revolt when his people found out about the wyrmbeasts living in the marshes and for his ensured longevity he's taken up residence elsewhere. But! That's not the point of this letter. As odds would have it, a not-lost not-King wandered through and picked up the crown. Dakaol saw the wyrmbeast head you left and came to visit me with a shining crown upon his head. Ha! How surprised he was when you weren't here under a cloud of gloom. He gave such an eloquent speech while Rabubu chased him around my tower. He sounded very sorry about the emotional constipation he suffered during your relationship. If you would like to find him, he’ll be waiting in Ithbold._

_Always,_

_Esana_

 

The letter burns to ash in his hands when he finishes reading. The fyre flasks clink on his belt and the Sword of Raagul hums at his waist as he considers it. He thinks about for awhile. Long enough that pastel clouds swirl in the sky in the shape of a question mark and the silver bangles on his wrist give a musical tinkle.

He lets the letter's ash fall from his hand.

He doesn't need a King of legends anymore to help define him. He's Fenik Lothrop, killer of the Giant of Egeberd, peacemaker between the Denizens of the Deep and Totovolt, wielder of the Sword of Raagul and Walker of the Beyond.

But it is nice to know that Dakaol isn't over him.

  
  
  
  



End file.
